$125 Checking Account Bonus at CertusBank in Parts of SC, GA & FL

I learned of this promotion on Friday when the FDIC announced CertusBank had assumed all deposits of the failed Parkway Bank. As I reviewed the CertusBank website, I noticed it was offering a checking account bonus of up to $125. Both new personal and business accounts are eligible. The details are listed in CertusBank’s promotion page as of 4/29/2013.

To earn the full $125 bonus, the following is required:

• $100 for opening a new checking account with direct deposit and bill pay
• Additional $25 for using your debit card five times in the first 60 days

Below is a copy of the offer’s small print:

To qualify for the $100 bonus deposit, a Direct Deposit must be received, and 1 payment completed via CertusBank Online Bill Pay within 60 days of account opening. The amount of a Direct Deposit credited to your checking account must be at least $100. To qualify for the $25 bonus deposit, make 5 purchases with your CertusBank VISA® Debit Card within 60 days of account opening. Offer only available to new CertusBank checking account customers who open a CertusBank personal checking account. Your checking account must remain open in order for you to receive the bonus deposits, which will be credited to the eligible account within 4 weeks of all conditions being met. Bonus deposits over $10 will be treated as interest income for income tax reporting purposes. Accounts closed within 6 months of opening are subject to a deduction of bonus deposit from closing balance.

In addition to this $125 bonus, they are offering a bonus interest rate (+0.20%) on a new Easy Savings account interest rate for the first 12 months. There’s also a $25 refer-a-friend bonus.

A free checking account qualifies for this promotion. They call it the Certus Simple Checking account, and it has no minimum balance requirement and no monthly fee. Other nice features that all of the bank’s checking accounts share include free ATM access at ATMs in the Presto! and Allpoint network, free first order of checks and free online bill pay.

Availability

A branch visit is required to open an account. CertusBank branches are located in Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. And based on its acquisition on Friday, it’s expanding into North Carolina.

Bank Overview

The bank has an overall health score at DepositAccounts.com of 3 stars (out of 5) with a Texas ratio of 56.83% (below average) based on December 2012 data. Please refer to our financial overview of CertusBank for more details. The bank has been a FDIC member since 2011 (FDIC Certificate # 59028).

Other Bank and Credit Union Bonuses

We have a bank promotions page with a table of all of the active bank and credit union promotions. You can filter the table based on the type of promotion and based on your state. I have more details about how to use this page in this blog post.

You can view my latest bank bonus blog posts in this bank bonus page. I and DepositAccounts.com readers often post on bonuses in the checking account deals forum.